CCA ID Student Places Second In International Housewares Show
KitchenSync offers "function and flair"
San Francisco, February 29, 2008
Industrial Design Program senior Noah Balmer tied for second place in the 2008 International Housewares Association student design competition. Noah will receive a $1,800 cash prize, as well as an all-expenses-paid trip to Chicago, where he will present his winning design, KitchenSync, at the 2008 International Home and Housewares Show.
The show is expected to attract 60,000 visitors from more than 100 countries all focused on buying and selling the latest products at the world's largest home-goods marketplace.
KitchenSync is a durable, hand-washable, portable wi-fi device that allows the user to look up recipes via a touch screen, thereby eliminating the risk of having a computer in the kitchen, as well as preventing the loss of smudged recipes printed in water-soluble ink. Slim and easy to use, the waterproof, book-shaped device ships with a stationary dock that it magnetically attaches to and through which it charges via induction. KitchenSync can remain in its dock or placed on a counter or even kept in one's hand.
Noah attended Lewis and Clark College, then transferred to California College of the Arts to pursue his design career. Regarding his choice to attend CCA, he explains it was because of its "great teachers, future thinking, and emphasis on sustainability."
In 2006 Noah also won an International Housewares award for his design of a kitchen scale manufactured with zinc. Studying industrial design is a natural progression for Noah, who has sculpted and created objects since childhood. He believes industrial design is "psychology of form," or the study of how "a person chooses a simple, sleek object over a complex mechanical one."
Noah will further advance his design career as an intern with designer Karim Rashid in the spring.
Additional press coverage available at the International Housewares Association website.
Technology never tasted so good
CCA senior Noah Balmer